This invention relates to shaving razors of the type including a reusable assembly, usually made up of a handle and blade cartridge holding housing, and a blade cartridge replaceably insertable into the reusable assembly, with the reusable assembly usually being of relatively expensive construction and the blade cartridge being of a low cost construction so that the reusable assembly can be successively used with a plurality of the blade cartridges with each cartridge intended to being thrown away as an expendable item after having been worn to an unsatisfactory degree of performance, and deals more particularly with improvements in such a shaving razor.
Present day shaving razors using replaceable blade cartridges comprise a number of different members that wear at different rates during use. These include a guard member usually in the form of an elongated flexible guard element to stretch the skin and to erect the beard hair, one or more blade edges, and a cap member often housing a depletable shaving aid such as an elongated body made up of or containing a skin treatment agent which is released from the body and transferred to the skin as the body passes over the skin during a shaving operation. Specific examples of suitable forms of shaving aids are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,170,821, 5,711,076, and 6,161,217 to which reference may be made for further details. At the present time, a commonly used and perhaps xe2x80x9cstandardxe2x80x9d shaving aid is one made of a body of hydrophilic polymers, in particular polyethylene oxide in a matrix of another polymer, with the body also containing traces of further treatment agents such as aloe and vitamin E.
It, therefore, becomes desirable to the manufacturer and to the consumer to have those parts subject to rapid wear to be replaceable ones, and in particular to be part of the replaceable blade cartridge, and to have the longer lasting parts be essentially non-replaceable and in particular to be part of the reusable assembly where they can perhaps with economical justification be made better and still more longer lasting than they could be if made part of the replaceable blade cartridge.
Further, in many instances of shaving razors using replaceable blade cartridges, the blade cartridges are held stationery relative to the reusable assembly, and it is known that for safety purposes, some improvement can be obtained by providing the blade cartridge with some degree of pivotal freedom of movement about a pivot axis parallel to the cutting edge or edges of the cartridge, yet still further improvements in regard to safety are desirable.
An object of the invention is, therefore, to provide a shaving razor using a replaceable blade cartridge in cooperation with a reusable assembly wherein the parts most subject to wear are formed as part of the blade cartridge and parts less subject to wear are provided as part of the reusable assembly.
In keeping with the above object, a more specific object is to provide a shaving razor of the aforementioned kind wherein each blade cartridge includes one or more blades and optionally a depletable shaving aid; and wherein a shaving guard is provided as part of the reusable assembly which shaving guard, when a blade cartridge is inserted into the reusable assembly, is located forwardly of the blade or blades to stretch the skin and erect beard hairs in advance of the blades as the cartridge is moved by the reusable assembly in a shaving direction.
A further object of the invention is to improve the safety of the aforementioned shaving razor by providing the replaceable blade cartridge with two different pivotal freedoms of movement relative to the reusable assembly about two different pivot axes.
The invention resides in a shaving razor comprising basically a reusable assembly movable in a shaving direction by a user""s hand and having a guard element, and a replaceable blade cartridge with at least one blade having an elongated cutting edge. The reusable assembly and the blade cartridge have cooperating catch parts allowing the blade cartridge to be brought into and out of an installed condition relative to the reusable assembly. The blade cartridge itself has no elongated guard located directly ahead of and parallel to the cutting edge or edges of its blade or blades, and when the cartridge is installed in the reusable assembly the guard element of the reusable assembly becomes located directly in front of the blade or blades of the blade cartridge and in a shaving operation functions in the normal fashion of a guard element even though the guard element is not itself a part of the blade cartridge.
The invention also resides in the reusable assembly including a sub-seat for holding a replaceable blade cartridge which sub-seat has a downwardly extending recess for receiving a downwardly extending protrusion of the replaceable blade cartridge and which sub-seat is held by the housing of the reusable assembly for rotation about a sub-seat pivot axis, the sub-seat carrying the guard element and the sub-seat pivot axis being parallel to and preferably substantially collinear with a guard element axis about which the guard element is substantially arcuate.
The invention still further resides in the sub-seat of the reusable assembly and the blade cartridge being so designed that when the blade cartridge is in the installed position relative to the sub-seat, the blade cartridge is pivotal relative to the sub-seat about a cartridge pivot axis parallel to the sub-seat pivot axis, and in the provision of spring means between the sub-seat and housing and between the blade cartridge and the sub-seat such that when a force is imposed on the blade or blades of the blade cartridge by the blade or blades encountering beard hairs, the force imposed on the blade or blades by the beard hairs will cause the sub-seat to pivot clockwise away from a counterclockwise limit position about the sub-seat pivot axis before the blade cartridge pivots clockwise relative to the sub-seat away from a counterclockwise limit position about the cartridge pivot axis.
The invention still further resides in the construction of the blade cartridge by itself being such that the cartridge includes no guard element or other part located directly in front of the blade or blades and also includes a downwardly extending connector protrusion capable of use in replaceably assembling the cartridge with a reusable assembly of a shaving razor.
Further features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment of the invention and the accompanying drawings and claims.